Poets from W.H. Auden to Shakespeare and Goethe to Racine fired Benjamin Britten’s musical imagination and kindled an artistic response that had little equal among 20th-century British composers. Nowhere do…
Chineke! Voices and Orchestra at the Proms
Very much a concert of two (unequal) halves, I am afraid. The first Proms performance of George Walker’s 1995 Lilacs promised and delivered much. However, the following performance of Beethoven’s…
Opera Award Foundation announces 2022 bursary recipients
The Opera Awards Foundation today announces its latest bursary recipients. Established by Harry Hyman in 2012 to help aspiring young artists reach their professional potential, the Opera Awards Foundation is…
A Handelian capriccio from Bampton Classical Opera at the Barn at Old Walland
Georg Frideric Handel and Richard Strauss may make unlikely bedfellows, but for this inaugural performance at the Barn at Old Walland, in Wadhurst, Sussex, Bampton Classical Opera wittily presented Handel’s…
A stirring The Dream of Gerontius from Edward Gardner and the LPO at the Proms
The final weeks of this Proms festival are serving up some terrific big choral works and, sitting in the stalls before this performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, how wonderful…
Bath Camerata on excellent form at Leominster Priory
Now in its fortieth year, the Presteigne Festival once again brought an eclectic mix of cultural events (music, film, art and poetry) to this unassuming Welsh border town. Under the…
Glyndebourne’s sumptuous new staging of Handel’s Alcina now available to stream on Glyndebourne Encore
Glyndebourne’s critically-acclaimed new production of Handel’s Alcina, which premiered at Glyndebourne Festival 2022, has just been released on Glyndebourne Encore. Glyndebourne Encore is a new streaming platform giving on-demand access to…
Stateliness and sincerity from John Butt and the OAE: Bach’s Mass in B Minor at the Proms
Why Bach wrote the B minor Mass is a puzzle that keeps musicologists occupied. How to perform it today is a probably unresolvable question for practitioners. The Mass began life…
Friendship in Song: An Intimate Art – the 21st Oxford Lieder Festival
Music is a profound means of forming conversations, connections and communities. From the salon to the soirée, artists and friends have gathered to share music and ideas, politics and passions. …